Bitcoin XT - Officially #REKT (also goes for BIP101 fraud)

[brg444]

I suggest you read Hayek's Road to Serfdom. Totalitarianism under the urge to follow a "strong" leader by steering the sheeps against a "common enemy" is not giving choice to the market.

I have read it actually, and having multiple implementations for people to choose from is the equivalent of giving the market freedom of choice.

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[Cconvert2G36]

Garzik is being entirely too reasonable about this.

Perhaps we should take 12 to 18 months to snark each other in an effort to build consensus.

[johnyj]

Without exaggeration, I have never seen this much disconnect between user wishes and dev outcomes in 20+ years of open source.
It is difficult to measure Users; projecting beyond "businesses and miners" is near impossible.

Without exaggeration, I have never seen this much disconnect between user
wishes and dev outcomes in 20+ years of open source.

This is because bitcoin is money or capital while rest of the open source software is just a tool which can be replaced at will if not good enough. When you have invested money in the bitcoin ecosystem and become the stake holder, there will be many different actors showing different interest, a chaos. This is especially true when developers are representing the interest of enterprises  

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

[Cconvert2G36]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman    Former Goldman Sachs
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors                Former Citigroup
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors                   Former McKinsey & Co
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors              Senior Fellow CFR
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors             Former Partner Carlyle Group

[johnyj]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

It has been proposed before that each miner contribute part of the mining income to pay the core devs, but the proposal was not further discussed

FOMC members get the highest motivation since they got keep all the money printed, this makes sure that they won't make stupid decisions just for their personal interest

[VeritasSapere]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman    Former Goldman Sachs
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors                Former Citigroup
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors                   Former McKinsey & Co
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors              Senior Fellow CFR
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors             Former Partner Carlyle Group

I agree with the principle, but the analogy definitely falls apart. lol

[johnyj]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman    Former Goldman Sachs
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors                Former Citigroup
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors                   Former McKinsey & Co
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors              Senior Fellow CFR
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors             Former Partner Carlyle Group

I agree with the principle, but the analogy definitely falls apart. lol

These are all banker's industry, not enterprise, FED of course represent the banker's interest

[Cconvert2G36]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman    Former Goldman Sachs
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors                Former Citigroup
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors                   Former McKinsey & Co
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors              Senior Fellow CFR
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors             Former Partner Carlyle Group

I agree with the principle, but the analogy definitely falls apart. lol

These are all banker's industry, not enterprise, FED of course represent the banker's interest

On second glance, maybe it's the perfect analogy, 'cept the "former" qualifier.

I thought about restraining myself in "good faith", then I remembered which thread I'm in.

[VeritasSapere]

-snip-

I think core devs should be forbidden from joining any enterprise. Have you ever seen any of the FOMC member working for Microsoft or PayPal??? They are even independent from the government just to make sure to be free from political influence

Not sure this is the best analogy.  

William C. Dudley, New York, Vice Chairman    Former Goldman Sachs
Stanley Fischer, Board of Governors                Former Citigroup
Lael Brainard, Board of Governors                   Former McKinsey & Co
Daniel K. Tarullo, Board of Governors              Senior Fellow CFR
Jerome H. Powell, Board of Governors             Former Partner Carlyle Group

I agree with the principle, but the analogy definitely falls apart. lol

These are all banker's industry, not enterprise, FED of course represent the banker's interest

On second glance, maybe it's the perfect analogy, 'cept the "former" qualifier.

I thought about restraining myself in "good faith", then I remembered which thread I'm in.

Good point, I stand corrected.

[johnyj]

If the block size is to raise to avoid a suddenly formed fee market, then fee will always be small relative to block reward, at least for decades to come.

This is because fee is an effective measure to compensate orphan risk, as long as orphan risk stays below 10%, the fee will always be less than 1/10 of the block subsidy, no matter how small the block subsidy is. I'm not sure what kind of orphan risk miners are willing to take today, but I think there is an optimum range: They could include thousands of transactions in a block and become orphaned 50% of time, thus get only half the block subsidy and rest must come from fee; or collect no transactions thus only receive block subsidy with minimum orphan risk. There is a middle ground somewhere they can feel comfortable with, e.g. the maximum transaction that they can include without incur a high orphan risk

Is there any chance the fee will rise to replace block subsidy?

[RoadTrain]

Judging by your posts, it's certainly about expertise. And Gavin's attitude is likely also the result of his expertise allowing him to grasp the concept.

It's time. Given same amount of time, you can only become an expert in a specific area, this unavoidably limited your view. Or you can select to be a generalist thus giving up details (The smallest project I managed had 100+ developers, I seldom go below system integration level to check the codes)

Yes. So, you don't have to check the code here, right? And instead be a generalist and give up details. SegWit is generally quite simple.

I say this again: Bitcoin is a monetary system. To design and maintain a monetary system, you need at least the view of the central bank, not the view of programmers, because the programmers are in the lower part of financial industry, and they lack of overview of whole financial world

If in your eyes bitcoin is just a payment system, then naturally you are aiming to defeat paypal and visa, which is the industry leading solution. But this is almost the lowest level of concern for central banks

Bitcoin is a monetary system, and its rules (like inflation schedule) are predefined. There's no need for any sort of 'central bank view' to exist, and I deem it dangerous to suggest that anyone (be it core or not) is similar to FOMC, and can act on that basis.

But Bitcoin is also a payment system, and here we need programmers. Variables pertaining to its payment system part can be changed, if these changes do not contradict its monetary rules.

The question is: Is blocksize limit a monetary or a payment system variable?

[johnyj]

Bitcoin is a monetary system, and its rules (like inflation schedule) are predefined. There's no need for any sort of 'central bank view' to exist, and I deem it dangerous to suggest that anyone (be it core or not) is similar to FOMC, and can act on that basis.

But Bitcoin is also a payment system, and here we need programmers. Variables pertaining to its payment system part can be changed, if these changes do not contradict its monetary rules.

The question is: Is blocksize limit a monetary or a payment system variable?

It is a payment system variable, but payment system is only a small component in a monetary system, thus the priority is much lower than the monetary system's integrity and security. If you get a transaction capacity problem, you talk to paypal, not Federal Reserve

The monetary rule is only FED's tool, their major task is maintain market confidence. I think core devs should also prioritize that,  as they are the one that can affect the market confidence of bitcoin ecosystem

If you want bitcoin network to become the world's most trustworthy money with predefined money supply schedule, responsible for money distribution to other institutions, then nothing needs to be done: The Fedwire system that handles large transactions between Federal reserve and thousands of member banks in US do 4 tps, and bitcoin can do that today

If you want bitcoin to become a paypal like system that handles high frequency trading between billions of private people, then it is an e-commerce system. Its capacity is heavily limited by the CPU speed and network bandwidth (not block size limit), due to the nature of P2P network (exponentially rising data traffic and lag with more and more nodes).

Of course it will be good that bitcoin can both be a secure monetary system while still be able to serve billions of users at protocol level, but if you can not get both, which one do you prioritize? I think it is a huge waste of resource to use thousands of nodes on a P2P network to make sure a coffee transaction is tamper resistant 

[VeritasSapere]

I think Bitcoin can do both, and that these different aspects of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other. I also do not think Bitcoin will become a world reserve currency without experiencing mass adoption as a currency for the people first, history also certainly supports this theory as well.

[RoadTrain]

If you want bitcoin network to become the world's most trustworthy money with predefined money supply schedule, responsible for money distribution to other institutions, then nothing needs to be done: The Fedwire system that handles large transactions between Federal reserve and thousands of member banks in US do 4 tps, and bitcoin can do that today

If you want bitcoin to become a paypal like system that handles high frequency trading between billions of private people, then it is an e-commerce system. Its capacity is heavily limited by the CPU speed and network bandwidth (not block size limit), due to the nature of P2P network (exponentially rising data traffic and lag with more and more nodes).

Of course it will be good that bitcoin can both be a secure monetary system while still be able to serve billions of users at protocol level, but if you can not get both, which one do you prioritize? I think it is a huge waste of resource to use thousands of nodes on a P2P network to make sure a coffee transaction is tamper resistant  

I personally believe Bitcoin's main goal is providing monetary sovereignty. But how can you make use of it, if you can't transact in a trustless way, because blockchain is only for settlements? How is that any better than fiat? Hence all this debate. Hence the Lightning Network. It is supposed to solve this problem: let you transact in Bitcoin in a trustless manner, but without the need to put every tx on the blockchain. If we just sit and do nothing, Bitcoin is going nowhere (well, I exaggerate, but it has a lot more potential). It's too early to freeze the protocol, though it must be done eventually, I believe.

[brg444]

I think Bitcoin can do both, and that these different aspects of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other. I also do not think Bitcoin will become a world reserve currency without experiencing mass adoption as a currency for the people first, history also certainly supports this theory as well.

It doesn't.

Typically any form of money that is not fiat started gaining traction as a currency only because people tended to hold it as they considered it valuable.

[brg444]

If you want bitcoin network to become the world's most trustworthy money with predefined money supply schedule, responsible for money distribution to other institutions, then nothing needs to be done: The Fedwire system that handles large transactions between Federal reserve and thousands of member banks in US do 4 tps, and bitcoin can do that today

If you want bitcoin to become a paypal like system that handles high frequency trading between billions of private people, then it is an e-commerce system. Its capacity is heavily limited by the CPU speed and network bandwidth (not block size limit), due to the nature of P2P network (exponentially rising data traffic and lag with more and more nodes).

Of course it will be good that bitcoin can both be a secure monetary system while still be able to serve billions of users at protocol level, but if you can not get both, which one do you prioritize? I think it is a huge waste of resource to use thousands of nodes on a P2P network to make sure a coffee transaction is tamper resistant  

I personally believe Bitcoin's main goal is providing monetary sovereignty. But how can you make use of it, if you can't transact in a trustless way, because blockchain is only for settlements? How is that any better than fiat? Hence all this debate. Hence the Lightning Network. It is supposed to solve this problem: let you transact in Bitcoin in a trustless manner, but without the need to put every tx on the blockchain. If we just sit and do nothing, Bitcoin is going nowhere (well, I exaggerate, but it has a lot more potential). It's too early to freeze the protocol, though it must be done eventually, I believe.

You cannot be serious....

For starters one of Bitcoin's central aspect is that for maybe the first time in history you can hold something that cannot be debased. Surely you'd agree that's quite a change from fiat.

It is reasonable to expect that people will still be dealing with financial institutions decades from now, whether it be banks, central clearing houses or what not.

The trendy "be your own bank" line is nothing but pipedream. Financial institutions are not going to disappear, they'll just be held accountable for their actions by the market and only the most competitive and innovative ones will survive. No more TBTF bailout.

[VeritasSapere]

I think Bitcoin can do both, and that these different aspects of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other. I also do not think Bitcoin will become a world reserve currency without experiencing mass adoption as a currency for the people first, history also certainly supports this theory as well.

It doesn't.

Typically any form of money that is not fiat started gaining traction as a currency only because people tended to hold it as they considered it valuable.

You should check your history, gold and silver coins have been used as a currency and a commodity for the majority of our known history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_coin

[brg444]

I think Bitcoin can do both, and that these different aspects of Bitcoin actually reinforce each other. I also do not think Bitcoin will become a world reserve currency without experiencing mass adoption as a currency for the people first, history also certainly supports this theory as well.

It doesn't.

Typically any form of money that is not fiat started gaining traction as a currency only because people tended to hold it as they considered it valuable.

You should check your history, gold and silver coins have been used as a currency and a commodity for the majority of our known history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_coin

You're really dense aren't ya?

Gold didn't start off as a currency but as ornament, jewelry & collectibles hence the argument that people first have to find value in a commodity and hold it before it gains traction as a currency.

[Proceed_With_GAWtion]

It's possible gmaxwell has had enough abuse. Apparently he gave up commit access to the bitcoin github. I saw his last post was in this thread a few days ago.

I've found the abuse the Core devs and BlockStream to terrible. I wouldn't blame any of them for choosing to walk away. On certain (unimportant) forums there's some celebration of the idea that gmaxwell may be walking away. Reading it, I have to say that I would walk away from a community with so many evil people. Frankly, I don't want to be in a "community" with people like that either. If there were a way to boot all of them out and keep gmaxwell, I'd prefer that. If they'd just fork off and leave the rest of us with Bitcoin, things would probably be fine (after a shaking out period). Instead they seem intent on "occupying" Bitcoin.

I'm sure gmaxwell knows he has a lot of supporters in the Bitcoin community. That wouldn't change if he decided to leave. I think most people would understand.

[VeritasSapere]

It's possible gmaxwell has had enough abuse. Apparently he gave up commit access to the bitcoin github. I saw his last post was in this thread a few days ago.

I've found the abuse the Core devs and BlockStream to terrible. I wouldn't blame any of them for choosing to walk away. On certain (unimportant) forums there's some celebration of the idea that gmaxwell may be walking away. Reading it, I have to say that I would walk away from a community with so many evil people. Frankly, I don't want to be in a "community" with people like that either. If there were a way to boot all of them out and keep gmaxwell, I'd prefer that. If they'd just fork off and leave the rest of us with Bitcoin, things would probably be fine (after a shaking out period). Instead they seem intent on "occupying" Bitcoin.

I'm sure gmaxwell knows he has a lot of supporters in the Bitcoin community. That wouldn't change if he decided to leave. I think most people would understand.

It can be said that the other side feels this way as well. They might even say the same thing about their ideological opponents. Considering that many people did sign up for the vision of Satoshi which Core presently seems to be diverting from.